Renowned local winemaker John Balagna is honored today on his 100th birthday. Courtesy/Tom Hill

By TOM HILL
Los Alamos

Today is the 100’th Birthday of John Balagna.

John joined the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos in March 1943, making him one of the earliest chemists on the Project. Over the years, he made many important contributions to the US nuclear weapons program, particularly in the radiochemistry of nuclear testing. He retired from the Lab in 1986.

John’s most important contribution, arguably, was in the area of wine. In the early ‘70s, he (along with John Lilley and Bruce Noel and others) founded the NM Vine & Wine Society, to promote grape growing and winemaking in the State. From those beginnings, the thriving NM wine industry of some 50 wineries today is part of his legacy.

John planted one of the first vinifera vineyards in his front yard in Pajarito Acres, later expanding into a larger vineyard in San Ysidro. He founded his Balagna Cellars/Il Santo Cellars on his home property and made wine commercially from 1986 until he closed it in 2008.

John’s real claim to fame was his La Bomba Grande wine. For the Lab’s 50th Anniversary in 1993, he bottled up a souvenir wine for the attendees with the Trinity mushroom cloud on the label. He had  viewed Trinity from atop Sandia Peak that July morning in 1945. The wine even received a write up in the Parade and Newsweek magazines.

Supposedly, a few bottles of La Bomba made it over to the LANL sister lab in Sarova in Russia and even a few bottles to the enemy in Livermore!

In his later years, I would spend most Sunday afternoons with John sharing my dinner wine and learning of the early days in the Manhattan Project. To the very end almost 2 years ago, his memory recall was incredible. Over the years, the number of glasses I shared with him had to be in the thousands. Both our livers survived the experience!

John was preceded in death by his amazing sculptor wife Jean and his daughter Lisa. He is survived by his daughter Rene in Albuquerque, and his younger sister Marge Bower in Hermosa Beach. And many wine friends across the State of NM.

In celebration of John’s 100th, we should all hoist a glass in his honor. I’ve already picked out a Zinfandel for my toast, one of his favorite wines. And in the classic John Balagna tradition, I will raise another toast and another, until the bottle is drained!